Notes tagged with Rarity

Curator Adriano Pedrosa pulls off a neat balance with this open submission show: the works feel raw but undaunted in these august surroundings.

Critic Rating 4 star.

Open submission shows can be sprawling affairs, so Open Cube is a rarity: Brazilian curator Adriano Pedrosa has culled 17 artists from 2,900 applications to create an enjoyable and coherent show. Part of its novelty lies in subverting its setting. White Cube is usually an elite stage where works fetch thousands of pounds. But Pedrosa has invited gatecrashers, most young and based in London, to take over.

Building site detritus: Adriano Amaral’s untitled column (2013)

This mischievous frisson would count for little if the work didn’t stand up to the grand galleries but it does. Upstairs there’s a sense of protest and of economic and cultural decay through Adriano Amaral’s classical column made from building-site detritus, and Nada Prlja’s reconstruction of a graffitied edifice she created in Berlin last year. Downstairs, abstraction reigns, with beautiful echoes between the works’ geometric forms and a homespun modesty in their materials. Caitlin Yardley combines textiles like an Amish quilt with rigid metal frames, while Nuno Dereitinho’s humble table and mirror are transformed into a playful illusion, seeming to hover over the floor.

Pedrosa pulls off a neat balance: the works feel raw but undaunted in these august surroundings.